Sundance thrives on a level of strangeness within their films. Some premises are so absurd one wonders if they can be successful. This year’s festival alone offered plenty of surrealist entertainment. Movies like Presence, Loves Lies Bleeding, and Freaky Tales delivered a level of hyper-stylized fantasy. It helped the festival to give audiences …
Annihilation is a 2018 sci-fi horror film directed by Alex Garland and written by Alex Garland and Jeff VanderMeer. VanderMeer also wrote the novel the movie is based on. I love this movie dearly. I was already interested in watching this movie because it features Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson. But hardly anyone knows about it. And that’s because it …
Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. To say the least, it’s been a mixed bag. Venom, a film I thoroughly enjoyed for its edgelord sensibilities, made a mint at the box office despite negative critical reception. Its sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, fared much better critically and commercially, but Sony’s next take on adapting …
Shoplifters is a 2018 Japanese language film directed, written, and edited by the amazing Hirokazu Kore-eda. The movie tells the story of a found family that relies on shoplifting to survive a life of poverty. One thing I love the most about Shoplifters is how it focuses on found families. This family is built …
Driving Madeleine (2022) is one of the most lovely films I’ve seen. Directed by Christian Carion, I haven’t seen many people talk about this movie, which makes me sad. The story of Madeleine Keller (Line Renaud), an older woman in Paris taking a last taxi ride thanks to driver Charles (Dany Boom) …
Happy Black History Month! I am back again with four more films I recommend you guys check out during Black History Month that feature black leads. I decided to focus on films that center the black experience. But I recommend films with experiences that are relatable to everyone, even if …
Who says you can’t direct bone-crunching fight scenes AND like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? Not Christian Sesma! I hopped on Zoom with the director of the pulse-pounding new action movie Lights Out, starring Mekhi Phifer, Jaime King, Frank Grillo, Scott Adkins, and Dermot Mulroney. Frank Grillo channels his signature intensity in Lights Out as Michael “Duffy” Duffield. It’s the kind …
Director William Eubank made a name for himself a few years ago at Sundance with the Sci-fi Thriller The Signal and more recently with the Kristin Stewart starring Underwater. He sat down with us over Zoom to talk about his new action movie, Land of Bad. Starring Russell Crowe, Luke Hemsworth, and Liam Hemsworth (in their first film together!), Milo Ventimiglia, and Ricky Whittle, this …
Surviving high school is no easy task, a sentiment that many of us can empathize with. Some thrived in high school, living at the top of the food chain, but it can be grueling if you’re not popular in some respect. Day in, day out, different day, same…well, you get …
When it comes to paintings and art, I’m not a huge connoisseur. I can walk through an art gallery and appreciate most pieces from a technical level, but as far as anything I would purchase and own for my own enjoyment, I’m pretty indifferent to most things. A new animated …
Biopics about popular celebrities can be difficult to create, largely in part because they will try to capture the scope of one’s whole life rather than the key elements that made them who they were. It’s not necessarily an incorrect approach to the genre, but for every fun or creative …
Sundance can always be an interesting start to the cinematic year. The festival’s films thrive on teasing audiences about the potential of great movies. In some cases, those films can even lead to prestigious Oscar winners like Coda. That does not mean every Sundance film has to have aspirations for awards. …
Jamie Nash literally wrote the book on screenwriting for television, Saves the Cat! Writes for TV, that is. The director is out with a new horror feature, Last Night at Terrace Lanes, that’s a ton of fun. With a script by Adam Cesare, Last Night at Terrace Lanes is a horror comedy about what happens when …
You know how people will watch a movie solely because their favorite actor is in it? That is how I fell into the trap of watching He Went That Way, the 2023 crime drama film directed by Jeffrey Darling and written by Evan M. Wiener. It stars Jacob Elordi and Zachary Quinto, so of course, you would assume that this …
The DCEU world has been filled with incredible highs and hellish lows. What began as a strong contender in a battle to compete with the MCU, the DCEU rose quickly before crashing and burning just as fast. Some films, such as Man of Steel, Wonder Woman, and Birds of Prey, stand as testaments …
Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has been a force to be reckoned with in Turkish cinema. In 2008, the filmmaker stunned everyone with his film Three Monkeys (Üç Maymun), for which he won the Best Director accolade at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. Three years later, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da) made everyone …
I need to stop watching movies where there is a significant age gap in a “couple” because it is always upsetting to me. There are enough lecherous people in the real world, preying on the admiration of young people, that I don’t need to see that behavior on screen. But …
Director Jesse Eisenberg returned to Sundance this year with his sophomore directorial effort, A Real Pain. The film has already made waves in the industry, with the worldwide rights acquired by Searchlight Pictures for $10 million. This news has made the film hotly anticipated in the movie world, as fans are eager to see …
It’s not every day that you walk away from a movie feeling moved in ways you weren’t expecting when you started it. At least, that’s been the experience for me. However, 2023 was filled with movies that impacted me in ways that I can only begin to describe, which is …
At the beginning of last year’s holiday season, I was lucky enough to see Waitress: The Musical in theaters. This movie is the big screen version of the Broadway production. It features music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles and was adapted for Broadway (and thus the movie screen) by Jessie Nelson. The musical is based on …